Oh Wonder - Ultralife (2017)

EDITORS’ NOTES
This London duo’s self-titled debut made unlikely, but successful, bedfellows of soul-jazz sophistication and glitchy alt-pop. Here, they take the formula to new extremes, fusing earth-clearing wub-wub synths with cocktail-lounge piano on “Heavy.” Ultralife’s melodic sharpness, however, is its most striking quality. It will take only one listen for the love-struck title track to tattoo itself onto your brain, before the whack-a-mole rhythms and grinding synths of “High on Humans” are wrangled into a euphoric head-rush of a chorus.

About Oh Wonder
Oh Wonder is the London, England-based songwriting duo of Anthony West and Josephine Vander Gucht, who craft and sing -- in unison -- wispy, mostly slow-grooving, R&B-flecked tunes. Beginning in September 2014, they set out to write, record, and release one song a month for a year, culminating in their D.I.Y. debut album of keyboard and drum-machine songs. Titled Oh Wonder, it was issued in early September 2015. In the meantime, the band became an online viral sensation, garnering millions of streams; received high-profile radio play at home; and was signed to Republic Records. They also had live dates scheduled in places like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, and New York City sell out before the album's arrival and before ever performing publicly. The debut went on to chart in the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.S. (where it landed in the top half of the Billboard 200), and Canada (where it reached the Top 20). The follow-up, their first to be conceived as an album, was heavily influenced by the relative isolation of traveling the world on tour. With instrumentation including analog synths and actual bass, drums, and strings, the self-produced Ultralife arrived in mid-2017. ~ Marcy Donelson